Sunday, 26 March 2017

This week has been another slow one on the hobby front, with visits from family and shelf building taking priority over my hobby... especially seeing as my hobby mojo has left the building at the moment.

Fortunately, I have things like this to enjoy now:

Click the Pic!

That was Marazion; yesterday. Beautiful, isn't it?

So I have sat down and thought about how my Squat army is going and I have decided that I need to make a few changes to get back to the original theme I was planning and that means I need to trim a few things.

I felt that I needed to streamline the army so have chosen to remove the Wolverines (they are too different), the Wyrdvanes (they just don't fit with the style of the army) and the Assassin(s) (I cannot think of a way of explaining their 'superness'). Everything else will be staying in the army and this is now where I am at with the organisation (the top three tiers are Codex Space Marines, the rest Codex Astra Millitarum):

Click the Pic!

You may need to 'right click' and 'view image in a new tab' to get a decent look at it. As you can see, I have finished quite a lot but still have a long way to go... but by keeping it simple, I am increasing the likelyhood of finishing everything.

That said, I may still add Wyrdvanes but they will be more tailored towards my existing Psykers (Beastmen Jedi) and that means a lot of conversion so I will worry about them later.

In order to get a few things finished, I have bought some space marine centurion weapon sprues from EBay so they should be arriving in the near future. That will enable me to equip my 3rd platoon with the special weapons they need, without having to convert them. It has also planted a brain-worm for a new conversion but I am going to wait and see what happens because it will mean more Priests/Berserkers (and I already have the three I am allowed... so it is an extra rather than something to fill up existing organisation slots).

What else is new? Well... I have filled in my pledge manager for the Kickstarter I joined. It was the Elsor-Varo Kickstarter, run by Gidran Miniatures and can be found...

I have just gone for a single set and the add ons and am now in the queue, waiting for things to arrive, as and when Gidran complete all the sculpting. It should be fun.

Once in a while, it is nice to be able to 'share the wealth' with fellow hobbyists and this week I have been able to do just that. I have sent a few spare arms to a chap because he really needed them to complete a unit of Squats. The reason I did this was because he only asked for what he needed... nothing more so I was happy to help and have sent a few extra bits too (I hope he will be happy with them). I think that 'giving back' is an essential part of life and really helps to balance all the shitty stuff that is going on in the world. I also think that there would be less shit in the world if more people just did nice things... especially when it doesn't cost anything (well... apart from a stamp in this case).

So... to finish, seeing as it is Mother's Day and I don't have one anymore... Here is the most important woman in my life... with me at the beach yesterday. Happy Mother's Day:

Now that is out of the way, let's talk about an interesting development in the world of GW miniatures... namely, the new Age of Sigmar Duardin miniatures and models.

So... we have all got our heads around the fact that Warhammer Fantasy turned into Age of Sigmar and that things immediately went pear-shapes because... round bases and non-point based armies. Then came the Sigmarines... giant, heavily armoured angel-knights that dwarf notmal men. This was followed by all the other races getting swept up in PDF format and the introduction of new ranges of miniatures.

Now, the latest new range is on the horizon and it has caused a bit of a stir in the WH40k world because... Squats (or not).

The Duardin seem to be a race of Dwarf, steam-punk, sky-pirates who float about in anti-gravity blimps. I expect that the anti-gravity side of things is 'arcane technology' rather than anything believeable... like helium. Unfortunately, the anti gravity side of things seems to be metal clad balloons.

In a bid to not cause any trouble, I am going to link to the official site so you can see the pictures:

A lot of people are saying "they are good to go as Squats" others are saying "with weapon swaps, they are good to go as Squats" but I think that they are not good to go as Squats unless you have already started building your Squat army from fantasy dwarfs. I would like to think that there are a few components that could be used but having looked at the images closely, I think that these Dwarfs will be in excess of 25mm tall so will be a little tall for my army. Add to that the fact that there is steam powered stuff all over the place and fantasy styled weapons (cannons and flint lock pistols), I am struggling to think of much that is salvageable... or worth buying... for a Squat army.

Onto the heavy armour. It is very nice and would likely make a nice basis for Exo armour or heavy armour for a Hearthguard unit but with the height thing in mind, it may be a bit of a tall order (pun intended) to fit them into my army... and the steam aspect may be difficult to remove.

There are also some design aspects that I don't like. The anti-grav balloons, the overly ornate helmets with top hats and monacles and the jarring mix of fantasy and tech weapons all make me cringe a little bit. It's all a bit 'Barron Munchausen' for my tastes.

I imagine that these Duardin will fly off the shelves (pun intended) and will be used by many WH40k collectors as the basis of a Squat army but I won't be one of them. Don't get me wrong... as an Age of Sigmar army, I think they fit in perfectly well and are definitely an interesting idea... but WH40k isn't Age of Sigmar and these troops just don't work as Squats for me.

There you go.

And just to clear my pallette... a proper Squat:

Click the Pic!

Captain Bjorn Thorsson 'Hammer Hand', Leader of the second company of the League of Forges' infantry.

Sunday, 12 March 2017

This week has been all about family. My son, daughter and their partners were down in Cornwall for the week so I spent quite a lot of time in their company. It was my son's 21st birthday this week so we decided that it was a good idea to both get tattoos to celebrate. We have taken a long time to decide which tattoos we would like but eventually settled on a raven each. It was all booked in for Wednesday but last Sunday, we were made aware that the tattooist no longer worked at the parlour. I popped in to the parlour on Monday, had a chat with the owner and she agreed to do the tattoos instead and I am so glad that she did because, not only was it my son's birthday present but she also did an absolutely fantastic job.

So... me and my son now have matching tattoos... a raven that watches our backs:

Click the Pic!

That means that I have had a tattoo with both my children now.

Spending time with family this week has meant that my hobby hasn't even had a look in. The only vaguely hobby related thing I have done this week is buy this:

Click the Pic!

It was £8.00 in a local factory shop and is currently in a box in component form, with all of the electronics removed. The main reason I bought it was for the legs. but I think there are a few other bits that may come in handy.

Sunday, 5 March 2017

This week has been a blur and I can't work out where most of it has gone.

After a 'no sleep Sunday' and another night of restless sleep, I started the week a little jaded. I was due to go to a friend's leaving party on Thursday so I decided to make sure that the old car (not the newly bought one) was functioning... and it wasn't. Dead battery. Wednesday, I was charging it up but it failed to take any charge and it appeared that one of the cells had completely died so a new battery was bought and fitted ready for the trip.

Wednesday night was interesting. Me and my wife were invited to judge a small cooking competition. The 'cheesecake challenge' was fun and we had six cheesecakes to taste and have an opinion on. It was a very close thing and they were all very nice but a winner was found. Fortunately, I got home before ten in the evening as I was up at three to drive for six hours back to Benson for the leaving party.

So... the drive up was pretty quiet... apart from being over tired, having a couple of swerves and ending up having to drink red-bull to get there safely. The party was great and went exactly as it should have and after a night in the mess, I drove back to Cornwall... ready for pub night. During pub night, it was decided that last night would be a karaoke night and it was hastily arranged because it was deemed necessary that a tired Inso should have a night of singing.

Saturday, my children and their boy/girl friends arrived and we all ended up in the pub together and having a great evening of karaoke... that ended at half past two in the morning.

There were a few down points on the evening... an accidental headbutt meant that I thought my nose was broken and today it is still throbbing... but fortunately, I think it is just bruised or something. No real harm done. Then there was the 'random person who tried to get me to react' and that was an interesting half an hour or so. I was far more sober than he was and I managed to confuse him enough to go and talk about me to his wife instead. Fortunately, it never amounted to anything but I think that if I hadn't been in the company of my close family and in such a good mood, I may not have been able to be so diplomatic.

So here we are today. As I mentioned, my children are visiting so I will be out and about and am very unlikely to be getting any hobby stuff done today... and as you can imagine, I have had little opportunity for hobby this week apart from something I have started to put together... something decidedly random... Drax:

Click the Pic!

It's been all about Squats lately so I needed something to just tinker with. I have lots of spare terminator legs so I am using them to create a thing. I'll let you decide what you think it may be.

Anyway... that is about it for this week. Hopefully, I'll get more sleep this week and be more productive...